Owen

I like that a lot.

With regard to reading/teaching notation, I do not think it is a prerequisite. I no longer teach in any meaningful way, but the amount of students I taught to read was not huge at all. It was just not on their radar and not something they would need. They wanted to play songs they knew. This could be done with TAB (not for me) or getting them to read chord charts for pitch and using their ears for rhythm. This enabled them to start playing their stuff and begin to play with their mates. In general I would let them choose what they wanted to play, occasionally guiding them. This made for motivated players. As they developed then some eventually looked at notation. Don't get me wrong, I believe that reading notation is a very good thing, but certainly, if you were teaching beginners then it is not an issue. Enthusing them is MUCH more important. And if they do power ahead and need notation, then pass them on (or use the time to get up to speed on notation).

I recorded 5 DI boxes I owned (no, I don't know either). One was the BSS we all know and love, one was the Behringer we see everywhere. To all intents and purposes I could hear no difference between those two. There was an old, knackered cheap one in the mox which turned out to be not nice, but otherwise they were much of a muchness.

TBF, he is not wrong. I have played it and it is a thing of joy.

Don't hold back, tell us how you really feel about the fretless.

Plugging into a desk can be fine and dandy. However, a piezo DB pickup with no buffer, going into a line level jack socket will sound horrible. This would be MUCH less of an issue for a passive electric bass but I would not automatically expect THE TOOOOONE! An active bass would be a safer bet.

The BC way this not is.

Is it possible to set up an alert if someone posts an advert for that thing I have always fancied?

I would be looking at the East option. It will be done and dusted then. Staying passive is a thing but I am not convinced that you are going to get that step up you are hoping for with a better passive loom. An East will come through the classifieds at some stage. Everything does.

Sadness. This is not the BC way.

I have been astonished at how different basses respond to different flats. I have a set of Chromes on a P bass and everything is fabulous. I had Chromes on another bass and they were just not for me. I also had TI Flats on a 33" bass with a string retainer bar behind the nut. The tension was way tighter than I expected.

Trumpeters Volume? Check. High notes? Check. Subtlety? Not always.

Don't forget the passive tone option. Yummy.

I am not anywhere near decent speakers at the moment so cannot listen. Does it make a guitar able to imitate a bass. I would love to mess with my telecaster and a plectrum and make it sound an octave down and like a bass. Nothing polyphonic. Just a nice, fat, dur-d-duur-dur-d-duur.

Mr East used to sell them mounted in boxes. If it floats your boat (and there are all sorts of reasons it would) then I would buy one and mount it in the smallest box possible. I had a J-retro bell plate mounted on a box a long time ago.

I lifted a Tricky Audio cab once. I actually LOL'd. Astonishing weight to performance ratio. In a good way.

There is nothing like a well balanced design. That is nothing like a well balanced design.

That is a fine looking (and playing) axe.

The first Pretenders album is almost perfection. Plenty of rock on there.